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By Tom Krazit, 31 October 2008 08:29

NEWS

One of IBM's top chip executives has agreed to join Apple as a senior executive but he might have to fight off his former employer first.

Mark Papermaster, until recently IBM's vice president of microprocessor technology development, plans to join Apple in early November in a position that will see him working closely with Apple CEO Steve Jobs in what IBM believes is an attempt to expand Apple's presence in the markets for servers and chips for handheld devices, according to the copy of a lawsuit filed by IBM against Papermaster.

IBM is suing Papermaster to prevent him from joining Apple and divulging trade secrets related to IBM's Power chips and server products, according to the complaint filed in the US District Court for the southern district of New York.

Papermaster has authored several papers on chip development at IBM, which of course used to make PowerPC processors for Apple before the company switched to Intel's processors in 2005. IBM called Papermaster "IBM's top expert in Power architecture and technology", and his most recent position involved managing IBM's blade server division.

An Apple representative declined to comment on the lawsuit or confirm Papermaster's pending employment with the company. IBM issued this statement: "Mr Papermaster's employment by Apple is a violation of his agreement with IBM against working for a competitor should he leave IBM. We will vigorously pursue this case in court."

If Papermaster is able to successfully join Apple, he'll be working closely with Apple CEO Steve Jobs "providing to Apple technical and strategic advice on a variety of issues", according to IBM's complaint. But which issues?

Apple's Xserve servers haven't exactly been a high priority over the last couple of years, as Apple has switched the Mac to Intel's processors and rolled out the iPhone. But a spruced-up Xserve blade server could be a nice complement to the Mac if Apple ever gets serious about tackling the enterprise market.

Papermaster's hire could signal Apple's intentions to build out a cloud-computing infrastructure to support things like MobileMe, or future services along those lines. Dense-but-powerful blade servers are being eyed by many companies as they build out the data centres of the future, and if Apple ever wants to be a major player in the future of internet-delivered services, it's going to need a lot of computing power at its disposal. As an extremely well-respected figure in the world of chip design, Papermaster might also be stepping in to lead Apple's chip design efforts. Apple's acquisition of PA Semi earlier this year showed the company is very serious about chip design. Jobs told The New York Times PA Semi would be used to build chips for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

If Apple wants to continue its strategy of designing and building complete systems, hardware, software, and now chips for iPhone and iPod Touch, it's going to need someone who can predict the future of chip design and advise Jobs and Apple's executive team on how Apple can best take advantage of those trends. Papermaster, with a unique set of skills in the tech industry, might be just that guy.